It's a possibility that the "resurrection" of Jesus didn't exist until Paul introduced the idea. We know that in the letter to the Galatians that there was "another gospel" and "another Jesus" besides the one Paul was preaching. Paul preached a resurrected Jesus whom he saw in vision - so by deduction, the other Jesus must have been a Jesus who was not resurrected. (Gal. 1 and 2)
In Paul's seven letters, there is no empty tomb and the resurrection is not the same physical body that was buried but a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15). A spiritual body would naturally (supernaturally) be invisible to the human eye. So, the "resurrected" Jesus would be invisible to everyone except the hallucinating believers. I would say that the "empty tomb" story was invented after the first Jewish war by the second generation of Xians searching for his tomb to venerate his bones and were unable to find it.
Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteThe other gospel Paul was referring to in Galatians had to deal with Judiazers, who were insisting that Christians had to be circumcised. It had nothing to do with the resurrection.
ReplyDeleteMore than that, Buddy.
ReplyDeleteIn Galatians, Paul is also defending being an apostle. He claims a vision of the risen Jesus and makes the claim that his gospel came directly from Jesus and God and was not taught to him by any man and that his gospel is not from the other apostles.
He then swears that he is not lying about this - which can only mean that someone has accused Paul of lying about his vision and special appointment.